Obama’s Politicized, Lawless Executive Branch

Under the administration of President Barack Obama, as never before in my lifetime, there is reason to be a bit afraid of the federal government.

I have written two books documenting Obama’s abuses of power, his assaults on the Constitution, his wars against business and energy, his abominably reckless spending, his divisiveness, his renegade Justice Department, his regulatory expansion, his executive orders, his overall lawlessness, and more.

Obama’s conduct concerning Obamacare alone would be enough to get the impeachment wheels rolling for any other president. His flagrant, deliberate lies regarding almost every aspect of that horrible law and his defiant refusal to accept any accountability for it seem unprecedented to me. Yes, Bill Clinton looked us in the face and denied his adulterous tryst with Monica Lewinsky, but Obama’s lies involve the nation’s health care system and affect virtually every American.

Without any basis in the Affordable Care Act — or in any other law or constitutional provision — he has unilaterally handed out exemptions from that “law of the land” like candy and has suspended its operation at his absolute whim.

Obama’s dismissiveness over the Benghazi, Libya, scandal and his overt conspiracy to deceive the public into believing that a video was responsible for the consulate attack are mind-blowingly callous and arrogant.

His collusive protection of Attorney General Eric Holder concerning the Fast and Furious scandal and his staggering disinterest in getting to the bottom of it are beyond comprehension.

His lack of contrition for the taxpayer waste he has personally generated in Solyndra-type ventures and in the non-job-producing stimulus is unconscionable, and his brazenness in pretending he is not blocking domestic oil production rises to the level of mocking Americans who disagree with him politically.

Has any president of this nation ever behaved and spoken as though he felt that being the president gave him royal powers — that he could just snub his executive nose at the other two coequal branches of the federal government and treat the states that didn’t cow to his dictates as if they were bastard stepchildren? Has anyone in that office ever acted so entitled?

I have barely scratched the surface here, but now we have potentially explosive evidence implicating the administration and at least one Democratic congressman in a truly heinous scandal involving the Internal Revenue Service, which has used its enormous power unlawfully against certain citizens and groups based on their political views and affiliations.

As you’ve surely learned by now, emails just released by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee reveal that there was improper communication between staff working for Democratic ranking member Elijah Cummings and the IRS during 2012 and 2013.

Cummings’ staff allegedly made inquiries to the IRS about True the Vote, a conservative group dedicated to voter fraud prevention. The IRS has hassled and impeded the group in its effort to obtain tax-exempt status for two years. It appears that the IRS and Cummings asked True the Vote for almost identical information, raising the possibility there was collusion between them.

It wasn’t as though this communication was innocuous. Emails show that Lois Lerner, who was the head of tax-exempt groups at the IRS at the time, apparently tried to get information to Cummings’ staff about True the Vote. If no foul play was involved, why did Rep. Cummings adamantly deny that his staff had ever contacted the IRS regarding True the Vote? Why didn’t Cummings disclose his contact with the IRS to the majority staff of the committee? What innocent explanation is there for the fact that the IRS and Cummings’ staff were seeking identical information? And what possible purpose would they have in discussing this conservative group in the first place? This is blood-boilingly outrageous.

How can this administration get away with turning the executive branch into its own partisan instrument? We have learned that Lerner discussed the possibility of getting a job with Organizing for Action, an Obama campaign arm. In addition, reports are just emerging that a government watchdog is pursuing cases against three other IRS employees and offices who are suspected of illegal political activity in support of President Obama.

The Office of Special Counsel said it was commonplace for employees in a Dallas IRS office to have pro-Obama screensavers on their computers and to have campaign-style buttons and stickers at their offices. In another case, according to the Office of Special Counsel, an employee working with the IRS’ customer help line urged taxpayers “to re-elect President Obama in 2012 by repeatedly reciting a chant based on the spelling of his last name.” Finally, an IRS employee in Kentucky has reportedly been suspended for 14 days for blasting Republicans in a conversation with a taxpayer.

Information has just begun to trickle out concerning all this misconduct, but there is no denying that this president has created a climate in the executive branch of the federal government that is openly partisan and decidedly hostile to political opponents.

With all the destruction and lawlessness from this administration, many people feel our situation is hopeless, but I am confident that there will be, in the not-too-distant future, both a political day of reckoning and a radical reversal in the direction this nation is heading. I have to believe it.

David Limbaugh is a writer, author and attorney. His latest book, “The Great Destroyer,” reached No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list for nonfiction. Follow him on Twitter @davidlimbaugh and his website at: www.davidlimbaugh.com.: